


Crisis Averted

by heeroluva



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drunkenness, Krem has a smart mouth, M/M, Nervousness, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-08 19:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7770601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heeroluva/pseuds/heeroluva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maker save Krem from melodramatic mages.</p><p>Or Dorian has a case of the nerves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crisis Averted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



Krem didn’t want to like Dorian. The Altus was a representation of most everything he hated about the Imperium. Dorian was a powerful mage and devastatingly handsome with an ego to match. Yet he made the chief smile in a way Krem had never seen before, soft and wistful as though he was dreaming of something that he could never have, something that would slip through his fingers if he looked away.

In the past when they hadn’t been out on a mission, Bull had rarely gone a night without someone sharing his bed. Krem understood the fascination, the drawn of the unknown. He wasn’t ashamed to say that he’d given into temptation a time or two. Qunari were the monsters that the Imperium told their children about, so he hadn’t faulted the mage in slaking his curiosity. Except once became three times, and three times turned into a half dozen, until Krem couldn’t remember the number of mornings that he’d seen Dorian sneaking from Bull’s room in the pre-dawn hours.

Krem might have only been a Soporati in the Army, but the men loved to talk, and even he had heard tales of the Altus who was whoring his way through the Imperium. If Dorian had been sleeping with women, maybe people would have been more inclined to turn a blind eye, but that it was a mage and first born Altus causing a ruckus, with men at that, made it impossible to ignore. Everyone knew how the mages obsessed with bloodlines, how children were bred for power and position and beauty. The mages liked to believe that they were better for it. It was one of the few times that Krem was thankful that he’d been born a Soporati.

At least Krem’s parents hadn’t been in a position to try blood magic on him. That was something that Krem was fairly certain that he hadn’t been supposed to overhear, but Bull’s door had been open and neither he nor the Inquisitor had been quiet in their discussion. They’d been lucky that it had been the middle of the night and most of those still around to hear would have been too drunk to remember it when they finally sobered up. Krem had been left with a sick feeling in his stomach, imagining his own parents trying to do something like that to him if they’d had the means.

It hadn’t been until then that Krem had really understood why Dorian had run south. He’d seemed to take great pride in thumbing his nose at Imperium mages. However, it seemed that it came back around to bite him in the ass.

Dorian had taken to joining the Chargers in the tavern for dinner. ‘Slumming with the common riffraff,’ he liked to say, and tonight was no different. Except tonight instead of Dorian’s customary place to Bull’s right (as if allowing him at his blind side wasn’t a huge tell), he sat across the table beside Krem, guzzling his ale like it was his first drink after a too long trip to the Hissing Wastes. When Dorian slumped heavily against his side, Krem debated shoving him away as he glanced over at the chief. There was a look of resolute sadness in his eye before it slipped away upon his notice of Krem’s attention. He gave Krem a smile and raised his glass in a salute.

Suddenly furious, Krem dragged Dorian to his feet and hauled him up the stairs, ignoring his weak protests and the laughter from the rest of the Chargers.

Shoving Dorian into his room, Krem slammed the door behind him and tried to fight the urge to do something that he would regret.

“Well, this certainly isn’t how I expected the evening—”

Krem jerked away from the body suddenly pressed up against his back. “I will not be a pawn in your game. If you want Bull, you tell him. You don’t try to _fuck_ through his crew in an attempt to make him jealous.”

Dorian’s face twisted in a scowl before he sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Was I really that transparent?”

“As glass,” Krem replied with a smirk. “But seriously, you pull that shit again and your ass is going to end up on the floor. Not that you aren’t devastatingly handsome—” Dorian’s lips stretched in a wide grin that Krem ignored, “—but you need to get it through your thick skull that this isn’t the Imperium. No one cares who you fuck. People are going to talk because they like to gossip, but they aren’t going to care if you’re fucking Bull or Blackwall or Cassandra.”

Dorian’s face twisted in disgust. “Thank you for those lovely mental images. Be that as it may, it is not so easy to cast off a lifetime of caution.”

Krem scoffed. “You call whoring yourself across the Imperium cautious?”

Dorian’s face went carefully blank before he finally said, “Of course you would know about that. Have you and the rest of the Chargers had a good laugh about it? Has Bull joined you?”

Maker save him from melodramatic mages. “Oh please, enough with the dramatics. If anyone else knows, they didn’t hear it from me, and they haven’t spread it around. Because get this, no one cares.”

Dorian rose to his feet, and stiffly said, “So you say. What do you know of being forced to live a lie?”

Krem’s brows rose in disbelief before Dorian eyes went wide as he seemed to realize just who he was talking to.

“I apologize. That was petty. Of course you know.” He closed his eyes, and it’s was only Krem’s quick move that gave him a soft landing as he swayed and fell back onto the bed instead of the floor. “Andraste’s tits, I’m a mess. I said I’d never do this again, but look at me now, pathetically in love.”

Dorian’s eyes suddenly went wide as his face went pale and for a moment Krem was afraid that he was going to be sick on Krem’s bed.

“I’m a fool.” Dorian turned pleading eyes to Krem. “It wasn’t supposed to go this far.”

“You wanted to ride the Bull, maybe thumb your nose at the Imperium and see if certain parts of him were proportional.”

“Well yes, but—” Dorian’s gaze goes sharp, his eyes snapping to Krem’s face. “Why you sly dog. I never would have guessed.”

Krem gave a small smile. “It was just a handful of times, well in the past. The chief helped me figure out some things.”

Dorian’s eyes drifted downward before realizing what he was doing and his eyes snapped up to Krem’s face.

Krem laughed at Dorian’s sudden embarrassed discomfort. “If I thought you were really interested in me, I’d show you exactly what he taught me and what I picked up after, but I get the feeling you’d rather be in someone else’s bed.”

“Not that you’re aren’t attractive, and I’m not terribly curious, but yes. The appeal of other partners seems to have waned in the face of Bull’s magnificence.”

“Not to mention his huge cock,” Krem teased with a wicked grin.

For a moment Dorian looked positively scandalized before he laughed. “Yes, that is certainly a positive. Is this where you give me the shovel talk? I break his heart, you break my head? Honestly, I don’t look good in black and blue.”

Krem scoffed. “Bull’s a big boy. He doesn’t need me fighting for his honor.”

“So what do you call dragging me up here then, if not ‘fighting for his honor’?”

“How about trying to save the drunk mage from doing something he’d regret in the morning. Just what were you trying to prove tonight?”

Dorian attempted to arrange his face into careful blankness but failed. “Nothing. It was nothing.”

Krem crossed his arms and gave him a withering look.

It only took a moment for Dorian’s resolve to break. “Fine, fine.”

Krem waited.

And waited.

“Well, out with it.”

“You don’t understand what it’s—” Dorian broke off seeing Krem’s look of censure. “I’ve never been so terrified of anything in life, this thing with Bull. It’ll break me.”

“So you decided to help it along?”

“Yes! No… I don’t know. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You told him this?” At Dorian’s shamefaced expression, Krem continued. “Dorian, the chief may be amazing at reading people because of his Ben-Hassrath training, but he’s not omnipotent.”

“I know that!” Dorian snapped. “Just talking about feelings, it’s not easy.”

“You’ve done a pretty good job with me tonight.”

“As nice as my face is, it’s easier to risk getting it smashed in than talk about matters of the heart. Sex is easy. The rest… not so much.”

Krem shrugged. “Are you done wallowing in self-pity and ready to go get your man?”

“I was _not_ wallow—” Dorian broke off with a huff. “Fine, yes, I was wallowing.” Dorian glanced around the room. “Do you have any brandy? I could use some liquid courage right about now.”

“I think you’ve had enough for the night. Any more and your eyes are going to float away. Stop running, and get out of here.”

“Do you think—”

“Dorian, I don’t speak for the chief, but I’ve never seen him as happy as he is when you’re around. Now get,” Krem said as he stepped aside and held the door open.

Dorian rushed out, and Krem followed at a more sedate pace. At the bottom of the stairs he was greeted by the sight of Dorian sitting in his customary position beside the chief as they laughed along with the rest of the Chargers.

When Bull caught his eyes and raised his drink as he glanced at Dorian with a smile, Krem gave him a smile and a nod. Crisis averted.


End file.
